Jan 03, 2008

Oct 17, 2007

Check out this site for a 90 second animated history of the spread of religion. One of the things that this animation makes clear is the strong correlation between a person's religion and where they're born.

Aug 04, 2005

As part of my research efforts for my new education company, I've been reading a lot about Isaac Newton. He is recognized as one of the great scientific geniuses, ranking alongside Einstein and Gauss. He invented calculus, the binomial theorem, discovered three laws of motion, and a bunch of other stuff.

But what most people don't know is that he also invented..... the cat flap.

Apparently his cat was disturbing him during his darkroom optic experiments, so he invented the flap to allow his cat to leave the house without requiring assistance.

Jul 14, 2005

One of the benefits of having a blog is receiving interesting emails from people you have never met! This happened to me a couple of days ago when Brad Glass contacted me to say that a sister of a co-worker had stumbled across my site and thought that he and I looked very similar. The Glass side of Brad comes from Prussia. I'm going to call my Dad tomorrow and see if I also have any relatives from Prussia. The picture below is a side-by-side comparison; we do seem to look alike!

Nov 30, 2004

I'm introducing a new category called "Fascinating Facts", and here's the first in the series. According to this month's Economist magazine, the tax code is so complex that it costs approximately $100 billion a year for the US population to comply, which is approximately 10% of the total tax revenue. Presumably, most of that money goes to accountants and tax advisors. This is pathetic.